


Touch

by potentiality_26



Category: Thorne (TV)
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, Missing Scene, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 08:30:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12813639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: He had just needed to visualize it- how the killer would have been positioned as he did his work.  He wasn’t used to that being so hard.  He was used to Phil helping him.A realization at the crime scene.





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

> A missing scene from the beginning of Scaredeycat.
> 
> Not Brit-picked.

Tom hadn’t thought Phil would notice. 

That was silly, probably.  Phil noticed things for a living, and Tom was being very obvious.  Sarah Chen noticed- but new as she was she didn’t know what it meant.  Did Phil?

He had just needed to visualize it- how the killer would have been positioned as he did his work.  He wasn’t used to that being so hard.  He was used to Phil helping him.  Tom didn’t normally like to be touched, and Phil’s hands- rough on his jaw or his chest or the back of his neck, showing him exactly how someone was killed- weren’t something he had expected to miss.  His friendship, of course.  Not his touch. 

Tom supposed that he could still ask Phil to show him.  Already Tom suspected that the key to getting, if not fully back into Phil’s good graces, then at least closer to him again was the job.  Because Phil would always do his job, no matter what.  He had been thinking about the murders James Calvert had committed, trying to puzzle out what must have really happened, even as Tughan arrested him for them.  And Phil was just over there, talking to a couple of his forensic people on the other side of Ruth Murray's body.  Chen was there too, asking him a few questions before heading off to learn more about their victim.  Tom didn’t think her line of questioning would turn out to be relevant- but at the moment he had no reason for the instinct.  He often didn’t; that had bothered him less before his instincts had led him so catastrophically wrong.  Right now... right now Phil was still pretty angry.  It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to have Phil put those hands around his neck. 

Tom shuddered and ran a hand through his hair, swearing inwardly.  Phil wasn’t going to strangle him, no matter how angry he got.  It was just a little morbid joke, one he couldn’t tell Phil with things as they currently stood between them and that wouldn’t be appreciated even if he could.  Phil might lose his temper in the moment, but he wasn’t a killer.  That Tom had thought he might be for even a second was precisely the problem.

Phil turned slightly as he talked.  He was always in motion, always full of this energy that his slender form wasn’t entirely able to contain.  As his head tilted, the pale light of the crime scene caught on his earring and the spot at his temple where he was starting to go grey.  Tom wanted-

“What?” Phil asked, catching Tom’s gaze.  His eyes went as sharp and shining as one of his instruments, and they seemed to cut all the way down to Tom's soul.

 _What_.  He wanted his friend back.  That was all it was, all it could be- especially now.  “Nothing,” Tom said.  He had gotten too used to the idea that Phil would be there when he finally figured out everything else- like how much he liked the look of Phil, and how the shudder he gave when he thought of Phil's hands on his neck was, strangely, not all bad.  And now-

Now he felt very much alone.  But he wouldn't give up, or let go.  Their friendship, whatever else it was, couldn't end here.   

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me on [tumblr](http://potentiality-26.tumblr.com).


End file.
